New Haven women pull away from St. Rose

By Brien Bouyea

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

ALBANY - The College of Saint Rose women's basketball team showed signs of tremendous potential Wednesday night, but it is obvious the Golden Knights are a work in progress and there will be some bumps in the road on their journey this season.

Saint Rose stumbled through several of those frustrating instances during its Northeast-10 Conference home opener against New Haven and the end result was a bitter pill to swallow for the Golden Knights.

Saint Rose had numerous defensive lapses in the second half and the Chargers capitalized by converting several easy baskets down the stretch en route to a 73-63 victory over the Golden Knights at Nolan Gymnasium in the NE-10 opener for both schools.

New Haven, which finished 3-23 overall and 3-19 in the NE-10 during the 2011-12 season, outscored Saint Rose 32-15 in the game's final 10 minutes to secure the victory.

"They're obviously greatly improved and they're difficult to guard because they are super quick and athletic," Saint Rose head coach Karen Haag said of the Chargers. "If you switch up and use zone on them they can bomb away and beat you from the outside. We broke down in a lot of places and they took advantage. We're early in the learning process of where we need to be on the court defensively and tonight showed we have a lot to work on."

The Golden Knights (0-1 NE-10, 2-1 overall) have nine new players in the program this season and had problems staying structured on both ends of the court against New Haven (1-0, 2-1).

"We got a bit out of sorts at times both on offense and defense," said Saint Rose freshman guard Nicole Bini, who led all scorers with 23 points. "We've got to stay more disciplined and continue to work together. We've made a lot of strides since the first day of practice, but I think we all realize it will take time."

The Golden Knights trailed by as many as 11 points in the opening half before roaring back to lead by seven with 11:19 remaining in the game. The Chargers, however, stayed composed, used a balanced attack and knocked down their fouls shots (19-for-22) to secure the victory. Ashley LeBlanc (14 points), Briana Bradford (14), Nikita Reddy (13) and Bria Moore (10) powered New Haven's offense.

Along with the defense, there were other areas of concern for Saint Rose. The Golden Knights turned the ball over 22 times and missed half of their 16 foul shots.

"The whole game was momentum swings and you can't sustain momentum when you turn the ball over and miss assignments on defense like we did," said Bini, who was 6-for-13 from 3-point range.